


A Four-Legged Charming

by Of_Princes_and_Savages



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dogs, Domestic Fluff, There is no fluff like Charming fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 22:36:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10931436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Princes_and_Savages/pseuds/Of_Princes_and_Savages
Summary: Chaos is over and David and Snow move to their new house. With all the changes, David considers one more...





	A Four-Legged Charming

**Author's Note:**

> One plot bunny set free in the world so it's not eating my brain, 99 to go.
> 
> Wilby the Wonderdog gets a mentions, (honestly that dog was my favorite new character introduced in S6,) and I theorize that the Last Supper took place _at least_ a week or two after the Final Battle. Unless Snowing could just move in to a farmhouse without paperwork signing and stuff.

Curses over and villains defeated, Storybrooke began to settle into the wonderful monotony of every day life. Jobs, school lessons, boring evenings of going to bed early after some bad TV.

The first thing David and Snow did was buy a house. A real house, with...well a bit more than a _yard_ , really, it was actual acreage.

With a red barn behind the house David was planning to keep a small flock of sheep in. It could wait a bit, things needed a bit of sprucing up, all around the new property and inside the house. But it was perfect. Or it would be once they painted over the weird orange color of the dining room...

So other than feeling like they were eating inside a pumpkin, things were going along nicely. Regina's housewarming gift had been a doormat she dug up online that actually said **Welcome to the Charmings'** and that couldn't have looked any nicer on the front steps. David was handling most of the home repair stuff, like the painting and the nailing down that one floorboard on the back porch, while Snow went back to teaching. Coming up on seven months old, Neal looked like he wanted to help, but mostly he was just chewing on things when David turned his back on unattended items.

(Snow never needed to know about the close call with the paint scraper...)

Thinking about getting sheep, though, had made David think about another new addition, too. Storybrooke had a pet shelter, he'd worked there under the curse post-coma, but David wasn't sure if he was ready or not.

His last dog was Wilby, a collie mutt with a great nose for tracking. He'd been David's best friend, more or less, until they'd had to sell him to a neighbor to make ends meet not too long before "Joan" came through. You just couldn't go out and get another dog after having one as special as Wilby.

Snow had never had a dog, but she did have a cat that vanished unexpectedly. (Regina hadn't even done anything to it, the poor thing just ran off one day and never came back.)

"I know what you mean. You have to be ready to move on, you can't just replace that pet-sized hole in your heart."

"I know, but I do miss having a dog. I'm just not sure how I'll know when I'm ready."

"Hmm...well," Snow thought for a moment. "What if...oh! What if we just visit the shelter? To see if there's anything there you click with?"

That seemed like a good idea, actually. They brought Neal with them that Saturday, just in case.

It wouldn't do at all to adopt a pup that turned out to hate babies.

A good-sized dog was what David had in mind. No "toy" or "miniature" anything, something that wouldn't be carried off by a hawk or trampled by sheep. The looks wouldn't matter so much as the health and temper. A good, dependable dog.

David knew how to tend to sheep on foot, but he wouldn't mind if their dog was a herder, either.

The first kennel had a squat bulldog. Nope. The next had something that resembled a small mop that had escape the cleaning supply closet and got trapped in the kennel. Nope. There was a big labrador mix in the next kennel that seemed about right, but he jumped on Snow and almost knocked her down and made Neal cry. Nope.

Couldn't have a dog that might accidentally hurt his wife or their baby.

"Sorry boy," David gave his ears a scratch before continuing the search.

Too small. Too big. A psychotic little dog that bit at their ankles through their blessedly thick boots. No, no, god help whoever may adopt that beast.

The redheaded woman with the pointy nose and glasses showing them around was talking about maybe talking to the Radcliffes, a couple of sweet, reputable dog breeders that lived a bit further out of town than them, when a teenage volunteer with bad acne came in with a collie on a leash.

"Charlie's got a clean bill of heal-Oh I'm sorry," he apologized.

David looked at the collie straining forwards to sniff at his shoes. Smart-looking dog. Pretty young-looking. Brown eyes, wet black nose, orange-and-white shaggy fur and nicely pointed ears. Just like a sheepdog from back home.

He knelt down. "This is...Charlie, you said his name is?"

"Well that's what we call _her_. She was from a litter of five so we were calling them Able, Baker, Charlie...what were the other two that got adopted real quick? I guess it doesn't matter, you can call her whatever you want."

David let 'Charlie' sniff his hand before she went and snuffled at Snow. Neal gurgled and, before they could stop him, yanked off his little knit hat and dropped it with a laugh.

That was becoming a regular thing as his baby coordination improved. Keeping shoes on his little feet was a Herculean task.

The dog picked it up and sat back on her haunches, staring up at Neal and Snow with _"did you lose this?"_ plainly written in her eyes.

Snow and David smiled at each other even as the embarrassed employees dove to retrieve Neal's beanie.

They named their new dog Charlotte. She was almost two, having been born in a litter after the curse broke and somehow ending up back here with the rest of the town as a grown dog. She was very patient for all her usual collie ADHD, and preferred frisbees to tennis balls. And slept on the enclosed back porch on a doggy bed. They'd put her in the laundry room when it got cold.

She seemed to decide that Neal was her inside-herd of one, and would block him from crawling where she decided he shouldn't be.

At the same time she and Neal seemed to think sharing baby/dog toys was fine, and while David and Snow had to keep an eye on that from now on, neither party had gotten sick from such. Dog nor baby.

Once he got a handful of sheep to get their own herd started, David couldn't imagine their life being anymore perfect, at least until the Sunday before this dinner they were holding at Granny's Diner when they had finished painting Neal's room, and Snow said they better pick out colors for another room.

"Charlotte's inside-herd is about to double..."

**Author's Note:**

> Aside from the obvious, (RUMBELLE!!!!) I'd say the Charmings new digs were my favorite part about the ending montage. They literally have a farm and a dog, it is Snowing paradise over there. :)


End file.
